While campaigning for the Republican nomination for the U.S. presidency in 1860, Abraham Lincoln began a tour of New England with a stop in New Haven. Although Lincoln had never visited the Elm City before, his antipathy toward slavery had been inspired in part by the writings of Leonard Bacon, minister of New Haven's Center Church.
In his speech in New Haven's Union Hall on March 6,
Lincoln stressed the importance of the antislavery movement within the Republican party. "No other national question," he said, "can even get a hearing just at present. For, whether we will or not, the question of Slavery is the question, the all absorbing topic of the day." He called for mutual understanding between the North and the South, while stressing his
support of free labor over slave labor. The politician's speech ignited "the wildest scene of enthusiasm and excitement that has been in New Haven for years," according to a newspaper account of the day.
The wisdom and philosophy of the United States' 16th president will again inspire a New Haven audience when the Yale Concert Band presents "Four Score and Seven Years Ago: Music of the American Civil War" at 8 p.m. on Thursday,
Feb. 12 (Lincoln's Birthday), in Woolsey Hall, corner of
College and Grove streets.
Highlighting the concert will be Aaron Copland's musical opus "Lincoln Portrait," which will feature narration by Richard Brodhead, dean of Yale College and the A. Bartlett Giamatti Professor of English. Written in 1943 as one of three "musical portraits" of eminent Americans by U.S. composers, "Lincoln Portrait" is divided into three main sections. "In the opening section," Copland once wrote of his work, "I wanted to suggest something of a mysterious sense of fatality that surrounds Lincoln's personality. Also, near the end of that section, something of his gentleness and simplicity of spirit. The quick middle section briefly sketches in the background of the times he lived. This merges into the concluding section where my sole purpose was to draw a simple but impressive frame about the words of Lincoln himself." Special period music for the piece will be provided by two Civil War reenactment ensembles attired in authentic regalia, Connecticut Valley Field Music (representing the Union) and Fifth Alabama Field Music (representing the Confederacy).
Thomas C. Duffy, associate dean of the School of Music and director of University bands, is the musical director for the concert, which will also include "Two 19th Century Views of the Star Spangled Banner" by Dudley Buck; "Tournament Galop" and "L'Union" by Louis Moreau Gottschalk; "Jerusalem the Golden," Charles Ives' setting of a Civil War band hymn; "Echoes of the 1860s," arranged by Donald Hunsberger; "Third Alarm March" by Edwin Franko Goldman; and "American Civil War Fantasy" by Jerry Bilik.
Tickets are $6; $4 for students, and can be purchased
9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. and 1:30-4:30 p.m. Monday-Friday in the Yale University Bands business office, Rm. 301 Hendrie Hall, 165 Elm St. (cash or checks only). Tickets will also be on sale in the Woolsey Hall box office beginning at 7 p.m. on the night of the concert. For further information, contact the Yale Bands office by telephone at 432-4111, or by email at stephanie.theodos@yale.edu.